Institute of Cetacean Research , the mouthpiece of Japan's whaling operation, has posted video from the whalers' vantage point showing some activities that seem to me to cross the line from harassment to assault. Firing flares onto the deck of a ship cannot be seen as anything else, to my mind. ... My sense, in this case, is that efforts by environmental and animal-welfare campaigners to track and document this whale hunt in international waters have provided a vital public service. Governments don't have the capacity to patrol those waters and journalists certainly don't, either. The decision by Watson and his crew to take things further, intervening directly, is justifiable to me (I wouldn't do it personally) only as long as he sticks to his pledge (in the video and elsewhere) not to hurt people or break laws. That's a fine line and open to lots of varied interpretation,...